Announcement of Hire

March 12, 2025

The Board of the Jackson Memorial Library received a unanimous recommendation from the Search Committee and is pleased to announce that we unanimously selected Adrienne Berg to be our next Library Director. We are thrilled that she has accepted, writing that she is “elated.” She will begin her tenure at the beginning of July and will join us for a few days in May.

Adrienne is a seasoned educator whose early childhood was in Brunswick and later Freeport between a family move to the Boston area. Her parents returned to Maine 30 years ago and have settled in Jefferson, and a sister lives there, too. Adrienne earned her Bachelors from Hampshire College (MA) in Environmental Studies and Creative Writing in 1990 and worked in organic agriculture in New England before moving to North Carolina to accept an internship at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in 1992, where she met her husband Eric and began to raise a family. She provided financial management and bookkeeping support to her family construction company while raising her three children (Clay, Anna, and Lacey) and began teaching English in 2004 at Chatham County Middle School when her youngest started school. She moved to Woods Charter School in 2009 to teach high school English and within a year had taken on the college counseling role, too.

Promoted to Director of the High School program in 2015 while retaining her counseling and teaching responsibilities, including AP English, Adrienne shepherded the division and the school through the Covid experience with nimbleness, empathy, and clarity. She was awarded a Masters in Education from North Carolina State University in Secondary English in 2015 and in 2018 received a Distinguished Award in Teaching grant from the Fulbright Commission.

A lifelong learner and teacher, Adrienne has particular interest in interdisciplinary and student-led inquiry. Areas of expertise include writing instruction, literary analysis, student support, and college counseling, as well as strategic planning, communications, event planning, and administrative leadership. To quote her, she “loves to read and talk about books, looks forward to being near the ocean, [and has] missed the drama of the weather,” revealing that she actually enjoyed visiting during that snow/sleet/rain/high wind storm. She notes: “All of my work is grounded in school climate, relationship-building, communication, well-being, and learning.” While she and her family sort out a permanent home, Adrienne has arranged with a good friend in Damariscotta to house sit this summer and into next winter in Port Clyde.

Thank you to all who helped with this process by meeting candidates and providing your insightful input. In addition to our Search Committee and the Board (9 in total) and our three staff, 34 patrons met at least one candidate. You also made our community’s commitment to and affection for the library palpable. The Search Committee was pleased to have confirmation from you that we had attracted good candidates, even as some of you had a particular preference. As you can imagine, this was a hard choice, even as it was exciting to be considering such impressive candidates.

Particular thanks to Sharon for her work with each candidate, to Rebecca for not simply meeting with each but also for her behind the scenes work to assure we communicated effectively with you, to Jess McGreevy at the school for arranging student led tours for each candidate, and to our Bookkeeper Joanne O’Shea for finding the time to interview each of our finalists. We can now turn this spring to celebrating Sharon’s tenure and many contributions, then to welcoming Adrienne. More about both of those will follow.

Chris Williamson, on behalf of the exceptional Search Committee (Ginny Vaitones, Anne Rogers, Connie Hammermeister, and Elaine Wilson) and the Board